How would you handle calculating the cash PC's make selling loot.

E.G., they've overcome two foes who had crossbows (60 shilling each retail value).

Do they get 60 Shillings, or have to make a Folklore check as if Haggling and with 1 success get that? Do they only get that if they spend some time hanging around waiting for right buyer (as a merchant does), and otherwise get only half?

i would start at half then haggle from there. you have to remember it is USED.

when you sell something in real life you never get new value.

example: a new car vs used

: tv

: or a gun go to a gun store and look at the price diff between a new and used one.

just my input thx

i certainly wouldn't give them retail price. i wouldn't want to encourage the d&d loot grab mentality.

i would add it to your interlude limited actions so they can choose to try and sell looted kit. i would treat it as a potentially shady enterprise. looking for a fence avoiding the law. perhaps a chaos star represents imperial entanglements, or the crossbow is recognised as belonging to a friend of some NPC. who's to say the bandit your player took it from didn't steal it himself.

Thanks.

I'm totally with the "let's not devolve into D&D looting" mentality.

Starting point is 50%, takes an Interlude Action to sell and try to Haggle up from there sounds good. Just sell for 50% and hand wave action so PC can focus on more interesting things also an option.

valvorik said:

But do you only have interludes between scenarios or whenever the players want? If they are in a city they may want to sell in the middle of a scenario. Not really related to this topic, just curious about how you handle interludes in this situation.

I cover it in my house rulebooks for all game systems. I put this determination and "replacement characters for dead/boring PCs" rule in every house rulebook.

Here's my rule (all game systems):

Loot
Unless otherwise specified by the GM, all loot and gear found is of poor quality and not saleable. Average or superior stuff sells for 20% of listed price (pending haggling). Loot found may be used, but it is poor quality (1 black die).

dl.dropbox.com/u/167876/WFRP3%20Hafner%20house%20rulebook%20v3.1.pdf

jh

Emirikol said:

This is a good scale.

That's good for stopping it being a "loot hunt" after fighting humans but breaks immersion/believability for me if heroes were being attacked by bandits who didn't have misfortune dice on their basic attacks but then discover after fight that their weapons are all poor quality, "misfortune dice" ones.

The other easy way to scale back PC "looting" is to use the encumbrance rules. In my experience it keeps players only taking stuff that is an improvement to them.

First of all I sell all loot at about 25% of the book value if they are just looking for cash trade. I may give them slightly higher if they are working in trade and then they are of course free to barter if they want to. Other things that limit trade is the locations they are in. Taking a pile of swords to a black smith and looking for coin won't get you far in a small town that doesn't have the coin in the first place and unless that small town has a need for a pile of swords they aren't probably going to trade anyway. Next they need to lug it with them so encumbrance/logic comes into effect.

Another option we sometimes use is the general assumption that generic looting of the dead covers their general necessities, logging, food, basic transportation etc...They then can save any coin they find for bribes, equipment purchasing or random other acts where more significant coin is needed.

The way I scale back looting in my game is whenever a character tries to do something like this, I say 'Remember in your favourite movie/ tv series/ novel where the hero rummages through the bodies of the dead and picks up all the stuff that the bad guys had and lugs it around for a couple of days and then visits his fence and spends half an hour haggling over how much money he gets for it?' And they say, 'No.' And I say, 'Exactly.'

monkeylite said:

This! Couldn't agree more.

If my players do want to go 'into business' as merchant adventurers despite the above, this is how I rationalise low loot returns on common items:

If they're selling to merchants they're not selling at retail prices. They're selling to the merchant at supplier prices. The merchant has to make a profit and pay pitch fees, bribes to guards and local crooks, kids to feed, expensive wives etc. and merchants are greedy, they will try and fleece the players as much as they can. This is why 25% of retail value is a good starting point, with skilled negotiators able to get 50% of retail value (poor negotiators may only get 10%!).

If the players want to cut out the middle-man and sell direct to a buyer (hoping to get a better price) then I still start them at a low selling price (25 % selling to brass tier, 50% selling to silver. Nobles won't buy common goods from adventurers). This is because the person they are buying from has no idea who the character is, they have no way of knowing if the goods are legitimate and if there is a problem with the goods they know that the character probably won't be around to sort it out.

Of course if the PCs uncover an ancient relic or precious resource then things are different, but they shouldn't be getting rich off looting common items (in my opinion any way).

Thanks again for discussion. The logic of "you're selling used goods under non-ideal conditions (assuming you're not settling down for a month waiting for right buyer)" is what I've been using and having that drive starting point down to 25% rather than 50% makes sense now.

The items are not Poor (misfortune die) but they are "used" and considered "on their way to being poor probably, not being purchased from an authorized guild member etc." In mobern terms this is buying from back of truck and not from licensed distributor.

I use Interludes by formal rules with some homebrew added mods. So I would make it "handwave disposing of things at 25%" or "use one of your precious Interlude actions trying to sell one item or a group of similar items, and Haggle where basic success is 25% and adjust from there per Haggling rules". So One success is 25%, 2 or 3 successes is 50%, 4+ successes is 75%, no successes/no banes is 20%, no successes with banes is 10% (note - once you start haggling you're commited to go through with it, you fast talk someone or they fast talk you, no backing out ). Haggling is of course an opposed check, the more the value you're disposing, the better quality (more challenging) your buyer.

The one item/similar means one check can dispose of the 4 horses you got from mounted bandits or the 4 shortbows or the 4 longswords and 4 daggers (I find it's when horses are involved issue comes up most as it provides more room for hauling stuff).

I agree with the 25% selling price for found odds-n-ends, but the location the players are in is the most important to me. There is someone somewhere in the Empire that will buy anything...and I mean anything. But finding someone that can buy something and someone that will buy something is a wholly different matter. Sure that blacksmith can purchase that pile of daggers and swords (mostly for materials I suppose), but who says he will ? He may be full up on materials and have several knives/swords that he's been unable to unload for the last year and a half. Why would he spend money just to bloat his inventory even more? You might convince him if he only has to fork over 10% of their value in coinage...but at that point why haul a cart-load of booty just to make a few piles of drinking coins?

Additionally, coin supply is generally low, whilst goods and services are a bit easier to come by. There is a good barter and trade market in the empire that will allow players to "make money" so to speak even though it may not clink and jangle in their pantyhose. Maybe the outfitter in a town on the edge of a forest would trade a character 25-50% of a crossbow's value in goods and services. Weapons and gear in my version of warhammer get messed up if they are neglected and end up being costly to maintain (one of the reasons a dirty man with a clean sword is something to worry about). They could unlimber themselves of crossbows in return for some other goods the chap has on hand or maybe an agreement that he'll just see to their bows, crossbows, fire-arms whenever they are in town.

I like to trade favours, goods and services to do-gooders in Warhammer. If you want to sleep on piles of coins there are game settings that work better for that, and they are totally fun (I love me some D&D). But being able to waltz into Ubersreik and wander into a nice Inn, Tavern or shop and give the owner a nod in return for food, a room, or a sharpened sword...feels pretty awesome in-game.

BUT, no one is going to just offer up their time and abilities to a bunch of loonies that haul a cart full of bloody pantaloons, slashed leather jerkins and broken swords around. Players need to learn to pick their fights in Warhammer in order to survive, and they have to learn discretion on looting in order to get ahead . It is more important to show up with the right loot than it is to show up with lots of loot to sell/trade. Showing up in the right town with one exceptional horse could get them some trade in service or goods (and maybe some jank if they are in a big enough town in Ostermark where someone could actually make money on increasing their horse inventory). Showing up with the three nags, two common draught horses, a cart full of broken weapons, slashed up leather jerkins, and the exceptional war trained steed to a Nordland fishing village is going to leave them looking like a bunch of whackos.

Keep in mind also that 'Adventuring' in DnD is a legitimate profession. In Warhammer it's a bit different. While there are plenty of soldiers, guards, and even shady characters, this isn't the day of regulated firearms (with permits) and Swords, Knives, and Crossbows are silver tier. Which cuts out the majority of the population from bying it (Brass can't afford it, and the Gold tier would also not stoop to buying such drivel).

Just because you HAVE 25 crappy non-steel orc swords doesn't mean someone wants them. Most people don't need to buy weapons and armor, and those that do need fitting (especially for the armor), and either can afford to buy a weapon of 'quality' from a legitimate merchant, or are buying cheaper stuff themselves (sticking to daggers instead of rapiers or those previously mentioned orc swords).

The smith may make weapons, but he sells his makers mark. He also may only sell a sword or two a month. And buying those 25 daggers from you is in no means a good deal for him in the short to medium run. Even private guards have a 'look' and uniform to uphold. Re-forged steel can have temper issues and is not as good as the raw stuff.

Basically your target audience is brigands, and people who are about to go to war. Maybe a peasant rebellion. Although they would be more comfortable with torches and pitchforks. A bow or five. Which all told, is actually tough to aim for in a market.

Also the encumbrance rules are there for a reason. PCs won't be lugging multiple crossbows around for long. And if they get creative with a horse and cart, make sure to have thrown wheels on chaos stars. Shot horses in ambushes. And nice adventures that involve treks through the mountains. They get the hint pretty quick.

Who is BUYING all this stuff that the PCs are looting? This is something that a GM should seriously consider if he doesn't want the D&D-Greyhawking of the bodies every encounter...

[crosspost from: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp ]

Of course there are banks and moneychangers, but if you don't want to have this kind of problem, don't put it out there as a tempting aspect. Considering there is a specific god of trade and commerce and the long history of wizards ripping off banks with fake/pretend money, you can really save yourself a big headache. Also, until there's a "banker" career, I consider banks to be incredibly rare (IMC

The same thing is true for blacksmiths having all kinds of money to buy up used equipment..or nobles buying up anything the PCs dump on their front lawn. "Oh, you've got a whole bunch of rusty katana's for sale eh? Pretty exotic and useless to me, but I guess I've got all this extra money laying around (in the bank , so I'll give you all kinds of cash and let you haggle me into the stratosphere."

Without the D&D bank/magic-shop-on-every-corner aspect rife in WFRP, you can have a more sensible game and less "Greyhawking of the Bodies" every encounter.

If you make this clear early in your campaign, you'll be better off. This is a good plug to help yourself as a GM by contributing to the "In My Warhammer..." thread: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

On a related note to the note above: I write these things down on my Obsidian Portal campaign page. This makes for another good addendum

[end crosspost]

Yes, I take it as a given that just as there is a limit on what and how much of things can be bought based on community size and other factors, same thing applies to selling things (though often in reverse, the town with lots of metal goods is good to buy in, bad to sell same in).

In a large town or city you can sell almost anything but selling multiples may be harder just as buying multiples harder - when buying I say one success finds one, with each success past first meaning you can find another. I would use the same with selling.

In smaller communities I would mostly just fiat things (rather than adjusting rolls etc.). There's no short term market in Hugeldal for a Doktor's medical books, you might find buyers for 1 horse, sword and crossbow though same person not likely to want all 3.

I got tired of this sort of thing years ago. The last time it happened I allowed the "heroes" to haul off a cart-load of used equipment but when they arrived in town the watch immediately started asking questions about the PC's goods. They obviously were not merchants so the guards figured the must be bandits, stupid ones at that. The PC's managed to talk their way out of the hangman's noose by "donating" the equipment to the town militia, including the cart and horse that they had paid for!

Just to play devil's advocate, why is it wrong for players to play the way they want to? Isn't this more of an argument of "who's game is it?"

I realize that there's a long history of GMing with the attitude of "it's my table, it's my game, I wear the viking hat and I make all the rules," but if everyone at the table wants to game one way why stop them? Isn't the GM wrong for not being on board with the majority?

Good point Doc. I think it really comes down to player motivations, campaign theme, and group consensus about what is "fun". My current group of players could care less about looting corpses, unless of course one of them has some sort of Chaos-thing that they want to destroy. And in my opinion everyone at the table should be playing the type of game they want to play, GM included.

I want to run games focused on story-telling, action, interesting plots, and fascinating NPC's. I have zero desire to run a fantasy game (or even play in one) focused on collecting enemy crap and selling it just to finance more power; I stopped playing in that game 25 years ago. I don't care how anyone plays, we all have likes and dislikes, but frankly my gaming time is too valuable to play in a game I'm not enjoying. If the group I currently play with wanted that kind of game then I'd simply play with other, more compatable players.

I have to agree with most of the poster here. The real difficulty is finding someone to buy these materials. Most towns/villages do not have much of a market for weapons and armor. Only in a full city might you find someone willing and able to purchase more than one or two items. At that point, however, there is competition, and as such prices will be pretty low for any low to mid quality items. A GM needs to keep in mind that whomever is buying from the PCs will realistically need to resell them (at a profit) or otherwise get a use out of them.

Doc does have a point, that if the PCs want to play the game with such looting they should be able to. However, the players should keep in mind the GM's desire for some gritty "realism" of supply and demand. The GM should arrange (or suggest to the PCs) that they find a fence or a reliable outlet for their continuous string of "acquired" goods. They could tithe it to the Temple of Sigmar, perhaps, for favors/assistance. Or perhaps they arrange something with a merchant's guild (which has a few representatives around the Empire)? And so on. So, while the coin per item might be low, it still benefits the group. Randomly looting bodies of enemies and then trying to pawn them at whatever local village the group happens to be in at the time should be relatively futile.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Hey Doc, I don't think it is. But good Devil's Advocate!

Finance (and to a great extent, all commerce, and even most of the systems) in this game is fairly abstract. A PC wanting to chip down statues in an abandoned temple, account for every horseshoe, belt buckle and arrowhead might be missing the point. But even if this is what the 'majority' wants, it requires a completely new way of tracking things. The game doesn't have pricing for most of these goods, and it isn't meant to do transactional micro-management. This means that the greedy players are forcing excessive extra work on the GM to try and run the game in a fashion it wasn't really meant to be run. If this is fun for both parties? Blessings away.

So then the question comes, what's the downside. Well aside from the haggling and pricing of everything, this breaks a number of the rules of encumbrance. That aside, what does this penny pinching lead to? Superior weapons and armor too early in the PCs careers, and often no need for plot. (If you're rich and merry, why are you out risking your life?) Basically, in my group this sort of rein pulling is not necessary. My PCs have goals, and while they're cash poor alot of times (every windfall they make, they tend to have to spend too much money pretending their noble is golden tier for plot reasons), they understand that I hand-wave a number of things (I don't track the price of every ale in an inn, or the cost of flint and tinder and such when trying to cook food they hunt in the wild) since they cooperate with me, and play inside the system and spirit of the game.

As is the case in many posts, the GM isn't asking how to be a terrible overlord (horned hat and all), but how to guide the PCs onto the track of what Warhammer and the game is all about. It's just a fellow co-runner of the game wanting to know how to prevent excessive micromanagement (including prepared lists of all the goods in the scene, with marble by the pound calculated or the cost of smelted weapons), and further problems such as super-rich PCs hiring 100 goons and forcing him to do henchmen on henchman combat to resolve plot.

If you have Signs of Faith, you already have a fantastic counter to the looting tendency: disease.

To use this technique, you need to describe combat results in viscerally disgusting fashion (luckily, this is WFRP, so you should really be doing this already). Take extra care that the descriptions of blood, bile, and other unpleasant substances are lovingly (and liberally) applied. For example, "The leader of the cultists vomits a torrent of blood and sausage all over himself as your crossbow bolt penetrates his upper abdomen" or "a foul stench rises from the fallen bounty hunter as death loosens his bowels." All you have to do then is wait for a PC to loot the deceased's possessions, and enjoy the fun as they find themselves picking up rather more than just a handful of brass pennies and an ornate dagger or two.

You should see the attractiveness of corpse-stripping drop pretty sharply among your PCs in short order.